Hoods Don't Die
by AwkwardTime
Summary: Esra Lily Dalton had a perfect life, living in 1967 New York, NY with her dad, older brother- Ethan -and two dog, but, things are rough all over. Her dad meets a woman and falls in love, completely forgetting about Esra and her brother. They get up and move. To where? Tulsa Oklahoma. Written by Cheyenne.
1. Chapter One

I was silent the whole trip there, staring out of my window and just wishing that I was back home, back to the family we used to be. Tulsa was such a small place compared to where I grew up in New York. Although they had their similarities- like the rumbles -even though NY's were much worse. You could say that Tulsa, Oklahoma was a mini-New York; they both had the same type of people.

My older brother, Ethan, sighed, "Ez, you haven't said a word this entire trip. C'mon and say somethin'," he pleaded, taking his hands off of the wheel for a split second.

I turned to him, "I'm just nervous for what bull there'll be in Tulsa. What it'll be like. Heard it ain't as tough as New York, but it's different." That was true, I was super curious, but it was mostly about how school would be. If I'd have any friends, it would be better.

_"No, Esra," _I mentally slapped myself, _"don't start thinking about school yet."_ I cursed under my breath, _"Don't fuckin' think about it; it's only the beginning of summer."_

Apparently at some point in my stressing I had fallen asleep because I was suddenly awaken by Ethan announcing loudly, "We're here."

When I opened my eyes, we were driving past a bunch of old, run-down looking houses and my eyes fell on a group of guys who looked to be around my age- sixteen going-on seventeen -sitting on the sidewalk smoking. There were about five of them, and they all wore jean or leather jackets, blue jeans, and had their hair slicked back. I recognized what they were instantly- Greasers. This place was beginning to feel a Hell lotta more like New York.

Ethan pulled into the driveway of one of the run-down looking houses about a block away from where those hoods were chilling and got out of the car. I sat there, clearly dumbfounded, this house was actually better than the house me and Ethan lived in when Dad left us stranded on the streets.

I got out of the car and went over to the front door of the house before turning to my brother, who was un-packing boxes out of the car, "This ours?" I asked with wide eyes.

He looked up, "Yeah, isn't it somethin'?" His blonde locks flopped in front of his eyes, my brother was quite handsome. Ha had bright blue eyes, blonde greased hair, and a strong build. He always carried a 7-inch switchblade in his back pocket. Before, in New York, he used to carry around his switch and a heater. You pretty much always had to. He made me carry one, too. A switch, I mean, he wouldn't trust me with a gun.

My hair wasn't greasy, it was never greasy. Since I'm female I never had to have it greasy. It was blonde, too, but darker. I also had blue eyes that seemed to change shade depending on what mood I was in.

"Ya know you could help me here instead of day-dreamin'," Ethan stated, snapping me out of it. He was carrying two big boxes from the car and was struggling with the door. I ran up to him.

"Sorry," I mumbled, opening the door for him. He walked in and placed the two boxes in the middle of the floor- more like dropped them -then he stalked past me cussing to himself while taking out a weed and lighting it. He took a couple of drags before stomping it out and heading over to our black Mustang.

Yeah, we did have a pretty tuff car for Greasers. Our 'Stang was not the type of car you generally saw people like us driving, but it's all Dad left us with. What else could we use? For a while there we had to sleep in the 'Stang, until I learned to drive it. Then we had to find somewhere else to live, NY was getting too bad, we couldn't be living on the streets anymore. We would have been killed.

I grabbed a box from the pile Ethan was making and took it inside, it was marked "FAMILY" on the side in big, bold printing. I rushed to put it down before the tears started blurring my vision. I missed the family we used to be, before Melanie came along and tore us apart with her greed and hatred. Our lives used to be perfect.

After Ethan and I got all of our boxes inside, we slumped down on the floor, "The movin' truck'll be here by seven. Then we'll get our furniture in," Ethan said, looking around what was supposed to be the living room... I think.

"Alright, cool," I told him, getting up to explore our new house. "Oh, I think I forgot my switch in the car. Would ya mind gettin' it for me? I still don't trust this place much."

Ethan rolled his eyes before getting up and silently walked out to the car. I went and sat on the staircase waiting for him to come back.

"Well looky here," I heard an unfamiliar voice say, "looks like we got ourselves new hoods."

_"Please God; don't let it be a Soc," _I thought, standing up.

"When'd y'all get here?" Another voice asked, by this time I was standing in the doorway, contemplating whether I should intervene. It wasn't any Socs; it was just the group of hoods I saw earlier when we drove past.

"About an hour and a half ago," Ethan answered. Had it really been almost two hours already?

I decided to intervene, these guys seemed pretty decent. More than decent, actually. A couple of them were dolls. When I walked out they all looked up at me.

"Oh, hey Ez! Here's your blade." He was leaning up against the hood of our car talking to the five guys and smoking. He waved my switch around.

"And who's this little lady?" The one with the blond-ish hair said. He was polishing off a black handled switchblade, "She looks like your mini-me. Shoot, she's something'." I stood there as the guys eyed me up and down.

I took my blade and put it in the back pocket of my leather pants, "I'm his sister," I told them, pointing to Ethan, "Esra. And y'all are...?"

"They call me Two-Bit," the one with the black switch that he seemed to admire so much said, "that's Johnny, Steve, Sodapop, and Ponyboy," he pointed to each guy and they all waved or said "hi" as he did.

"Where'd you move here from?" Sodapop asked. Odd name, but I liked it. You definitely wouldn't get that in New York.

"New York," I stated, pulling a weed out of my brother's pocket and lighting it. The boys exchanged glances.

"So is our friend, Dallas. Dallas Winston," Johnny told us.

_"Dallas Winston. That sure does ring a bell. I'm sure I read it in the paper one time, boy, he must've had a police record a mile long," _I thought.

They must've known I was thinking, because Steve suggested, "You wanna meet him? He told us he'd be up at Buck's. We were just on our way there now."

I looked longingly at Ethan, who had been in a detailed conversation with Ponyboy the whole time, "Hey, Ethan, can I go hang out with these boys?" He looked at me, and then at them, and then at the pocket where I kept my blade.

"Yeah, sure. Be back by 7:30. We need to un-pack."

We started walking, "Dallas Winston, eh? Yeah, I've heard of him. He must have wonderful memories with the fuzz," I said.

Johnny looked up, "Everybody's heard of Dally," he said, elbowing Ponyboy. The rest of the guys nodded.

"So how old are ya, Blondie?" Two-Bit asked, stomping out his cigarette butt.

"I'll be seventeen in four days," I told him, Sodapop instantly became interested, "and my brother's just only nineteen."

"I'm almost seventeen, too," Sodapop started, "and Two-Bit's eighteen, Steve's seventeen, Johnny's sixteen, and lil' Pony's only fourteen." He grabbed Ponyboy into a headlock and started giving him a nuggie.

"Dal's only seventeen, but he seems older," Steve stated.

When Ponyboy finally shook off Sodapop he added, "Yeah, and we have an older brother named Darry who's twenty."

I looked at him, "We?" I asked. Were they all related?

He looked confused for a minute, before explaining, "Soda and I. We're brothers and our older brother takes care of us," He playfully punched Sodapop in the left shoulder. I should've known they were brothers, they both look awfully alike.

"This is Buck Merril's place. Dally crashes here a lot," Two-Bit nudged me; making me look at the big house we had stopped in front of. It had a lighted red sign above the door that read BUD.

The boys all walked in, showing me the way. When we got inside, there was a towheaded boy sitting on a chair at a table in the center of the room smoking. He looked up at us when we walked in.

"Hey, Dal. What's goin' on?" Johnny asked him.

Dallas took a drag on his cigarette, "Same old. What 'bout you, Johnnycake?"

Steve pushed me in front of him and put his hands on my shoulders, "New hoods just moved here from New York," Dallas instantly looked up the second New York was mentioned, "This is Esra."

Dallas' eyes fell on me, "What's a girl like you doin' and hangin' with these hoods?" He smiled at me, he was actually pretty attractive.

"Had nowhere else to live since my jackass of a father went and ran off with his bitch girlfriend and left my brother and I to fend for ourselves on the streets," the boys seemed all taken aback with my colourful vocabulary choices, "Heard you're quite familiar with N.Y."

He smiled at me again, "Shoot, you dig okay. For a girl."


	2. Chapter Two

The boys were all really friendly, they were telling me a whole bunch of stories about the rumbles they had, all about the Socs, about Tulsa itself, and so on.

"Wow," I said with wide eyes, "you guys are quite the information-holders." The boys nodded with goofy-grins on their faces, making me burst into a fit of giggles.

Johnny looked at his watch, "Hey, Ez," he said, "what time are you supposed to be home by?"

I looked at him from where Dallas and I were sitting on the couch; he was telling me a story about his many adventures in New York. "7:30, why?"

"Well it's seven o'clock right now, so you should probably be headin' out."

All the boys groaned as I sighed and stood up, "Hey, why don't y'all come over to my place tomorrow? I may not be awake, but I know Ethan will," I shrugged.

A few of the boys nodded and said "sure", Sodapop stood up, too. "Want me to walk you home?" He asked. I nodded.

Before we opened the door, Two-Bit yelled, "Hey Soda! You got a blade on ya? Those pesky Socs would be starting to make their rounds right 'bout now. Best be careful." When Sodapop shook his head to say "no", Two-Bit chucked him his black-handled blade. Sodapop caught it without a moment's hesitation.

When we finally got out of Buck's house, Sodapop said, "I don't think I officially got to say this: Hi! Welcome to Tulsa, I'll be your tour guide. I'm Sodapop Curtis, and you are?" I giggled as he bowed and stuck out his hand for me to shake.

"Ha. I'm Esra Dalton. Nice to meet you, Sodapop."

"Call me Soda, everyone does," he stated cool-ly, taking out Two-Bit's switch from his pocket and playing with it.

I eyed it, "You don't think we'll get jumped, right?"

He looked up at me, "Aw is the little City-Girl scared?" He asked in a fake-mocking tone.

I playfully slapped his arm, laughing, I defended myself, "No, I'm just not used to this place yet, so I don't know what to expect," I paused, "And hey! Who are you calling "City-Girl"?! You live in a city, too!"

He smiled, wow; his smile was so whole, "Yeah, but I'm a boy," he winked at me.

I rolled my eyes, "Yeah, a boy who's about to get beaten!" I yelled at him as he made a break for it, I chased after him, laughing my butt off.

"Oh no!" He screamed, "She's gonna give me cooties! Oh! Get away, Cootie-Girl!"

I finally caught up to him and tackled him; we both fell on the ground and rolled onto my lawn. We just laid there for a moment, out of breath.

I got up and went to go look for Ethan, the moving truck was there, but where was he? When I finally got inside, there was a note on the floor:

_"Esra,"_ it read, _"I've gone to pick up a few things. Start un-packing. Ethan."_

I didn't even know Soda was standing behind me until he loudly announced, "Okay, let's go start un-packing."

We walked outside and Soda lifted the big, heavy door up and open, then he walked inside and started pushing a big box. It said "Couch" on the side.

"Hey, you wanna grab the other end and I'll push?" He asked; I ran over to help him, together; we got it off the truck and in the house.

"You know you really don't have to help me, I'm not completely useless," I smiled at him.

He sighed, "Yeah, I know, but I want to, plus, if I'm not here, them Socs would jump you so quickly. They jump girls, too, ya know."

"Yeah, I know, but thanks."

When Soda and I had gotten all the boxes inside it was nearing nine o'clock. Ethan still wasn't home yet so Soda and I decided to go looking for him. I was getting worried.

"Okay, well the nearest store is only two blocks away, and my house is on the way there, so let's stop by and see how much of the gang is there. I have a feeling we're gonna need 'em," I nodded, and we headed out.

We walked past literally five houses before we got to Soda's. It wasn't a very big house, but I guess that was alright for the three of them.

Soda walked right in and said, "Hi Darry! This is Esra, she and her brother just moved in down the street," A guy with a massive build and dark brown hair looked up at me from the newspaper he was reading. You could so tell they were related.

The big guy- or Darry –smiled and said, "Yes, Pony told me about her when him, Johnny, and Dally came back from Buck's. They told me you were with her," he paused, "Two-Bit just got here."

"Yeah, we came here looking for some of the gang," I told Darry.

"Why? Something wrong?" Darry asked us, we just looked at each other, trying to figure out who would explain.

Sodapop sighed, "Well we got to Esra's house at 7:20, and there was a note on the floor from her older brother, Ethan, that said he would be back soon and telling her to start un-packing. Well, we did, and now it's 9:05 and he's still not back yet."

Darry stood up, man, he was a tank, "They're out back, but if you're going to look for him, I'm coming too," he lead us outside to where Johnny, Ponyboy, Two-Bit, and Dallas were smoking.

The second they saw us they turned to me, "Hey Esra, done un-packing?" Ponyboy asked me. I nodded.

"Guys, we need you to come help us look for Ethan, he left us a note for when we got to Esra's saying that he'd be back soon. That was at 7:20, it's now nine o'clock," Soda got right down to business.

It was almost as if they knew exactly what happened because they all put out their smokes and clamored inside.

"Switch," Two-Bit told Soda. Soda reached into his back pocket and threw Two-Bit's switchblade to him.

Ponyboy hugged me and we all headed out into the dark, the store Ethan said he was going to be at was just another block away.

As we got closer and close to the store the bad feeling that was in the pit of my stomach was getting bigger and bigger, I shivered.

Obviously Johnny noticed this because he asked, "You cold?" And barely gave me time to answer before he had his jean jacket off and placed it on me, then Dallas put his arm around my shoulders.

When we got into the parking lot of the store it seemed we all instantly knew what happened:

Socs.


	3. Chapter Three

It seemed that when Ethan went to the store, he had gone right about when the Socs were in the middle of a gang fight. The boys had said that either Ethan had tried to stop the fight, or they jumped him instead of their stupid in-fighting.

The instant I had seen Ethan lying in that big heap, tears started welling in my eyes. How could I have let this happen to him? It didn't seem fair, really. I should have been there; I shouldn't have gone to hang out with these boys. I should have gone to the store with him, or made sure he wasn't going alone. It wasn't fair that this happened to him, he didn't deserve it one bit.

I walked over to Ethan and knelt down to check if he was still alive. With trembling hands and eyes filled with stinging salt-water tears, I picked up his right arm that was flopped out on the pavement like it was just dropped there. He was still alive- thank God –but he was barely breathing and was unconscious.

The tears that I had been trying ever so hard to keep back just started flowing out against my will. The boys, who had just been standing there, ran over to me the instant they noticed I was crying. Darry came over and picked Ethan up off of the tough, broken pavement with such ease you would think he had just picked up a feather. Soda came and wrapped me up in his strong grip, he didn't say anything to me, and he just held me. He didn't even seem to care that I was soaking his black t-shirt with my hot tears.

Darry mumbled something to Ponyboy, and he and Johnny ran inside the store telling them to call an ambulance. Within a couple of minutes, an ambulance pulled up filling the area with its deafening sirens and flashing its lights. When they got Ethan on, they had asked me if I wanted to go with them. I shook my head no; I couldn't take seeing Ethan all bet up.

"I can drive you down to the hospital, Esra," Darry said as Soda helped me- pretty much picked me –up off of the ground. I calmed down enough to make conversation, but my breathing was still unsteady.

"Thank you, Darry," I told him, "but you really don't have to."

"Come on, we'll wait for him to wake up at the hospital so the first person he sees will be you," Darry made sure that I was going to be okay with this before we packed Ponyboy, Johnny, Sodapop and I into the Curtis' car. Two-Bit, Steve, and Dallas all said that they wanted to go find the Socs who jumped Ethan and give them a good "talkin' to".

When we got to the hospital, the lady at the front desk said that we would have to wait in the waiting area for the doctor's to say that we can go in and see Ethan. We waited for over an hour for him to come-to. I know I had fallen asleep with my head on Johnny's shoulder half an hour into our waiting. I was exhausted.

"Esra, wake up. The doctor's here." I heard someone say, I think it was Johnny but I couldn't be so sure. I was still too-groggy to figure that out.

When I sat up the doctor was standing right in front of me, "Hello, are you Ethan's sister?" He asked.

I nodded, "Is he okay?"

His long face went from happy to morbid when I mentioned that, he took a look at his clipboard, "I'm Dr. Jones. Yes, your brother is okay; he's badly beaten up and will have to stay in out custody for tonight. He's awake now, though, would you like to see him?"

"Yes," I replied. Dr. Jones motioned for us to follow him quietly down the hall into a room marked Emergency. There was Ethan, lying on a hospital bed hooked up to countless machines taking his blood pressure, his heart-rate, et cetera.

When we walked into the room, Ethan noticed me immediately, "Esra, I'm sorry," he said.

I sat down in a chair beside his bed, "It's alright, the Curtis family made sure that you got some help right away. Darry Curtis drove me down here. I don't think you've met him yet." Darry stepped forward and introduced himself as Soda and Ponyboy's older brother-slash-guardian.

"Thanks, Darry," Ethan said, smiling as hard as he could. He really was weak, and he looked it too. To add to it he had some bad cuts on his face that would turn into scars he would keep forever, "Ezzy, I don't want you staying home alone tonight, okay?" He added; using the nickname I had acquired when I was four.

I didn't know what I was going to do, "But what do I do, Ethan? You're my only guardian now since daddy left us to go with _Melanie_." The words came out harsh when I said her name, I hated that woman.

My father told us that she was going to become our new mother; little did he know that when he wasn't around, she put us down. She hated us and thought we were just going to get in the way of her and my father's money. That's the only thing she wanted, she ended up tearing our family apart by being the cause for our huge fights. Finally, my father had enough and she made him just abandon us one night so they could go somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if she had already dumped him for somebody richer. To look at Melanie you would see somebody so utterly gorgeous it was almost unbearable, but then you get to know her and you suddenly end up seeing this woman who was a boil on the butt of society.

"You could stay with us, we have the room," Ponyboy jumped in quickly, I turned around to face him, when I looked, Darry and Soda were both nodding their heads. I looked back over at Ethan.

"As long as you'll be safe," Ethan agreed as a nurse came in telling us that visiting hours are up, "G'night Ezzy, come visit me tomorrow." I nodded, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and the Curtis family (plus Johnny) and I left.


	4. Chapter Four

On the way up to the Curtis' house, everybody had so many questions to ask me, most of them were about Ethan, my parents, or Melanie.

"What happened to your parents?" Johnny asked.

"Wait, Ethan's your guardian?" Ponyboy added to the mix.

Then Soda piped in, "Who is Melanie?"

Darry was the only one that didn't ask me anything, I guess he knew that those were tender subjects and didn't feel that this was the right time to interrogate me beyond belief.

"I never knew my mother, but my father always used to tell me that she was the most amazing and beautiful woman you could ever meet. He always told me that I looked like her. But my father left us for some chick he met who just wanted him for his money. The shallow little bitch…" I continued on my rant until Darry cleared his throat.

"She's had a long day, everybody just back off with the questions for tonight," he told them, and the three shut up instantly as we pulled into their driveway.

When we got out of the car, Ponyboy looked over at Johnny and asked, "You wanna stay here or are you gonna go home?"

Johnny looked uncomfortable for a moment, un-sure of what to say, "Uh, let's go check to make sure that they haven't killed each other, wanna come with us, Esra?"

"Sure, why not?" The boys nodded and we headed east to Johnny's house.

"Esra, what can we call you?" Ponyboy asked me as we were half-way to Johnny's.

"Huh?" I was confused, probably because I was over-tired. Today had been a pretty eventful day for me.

He repeated the question, "What should we call you? I mean, for a nickname," he told me, "You can call me Pony." He and Johnny waited patiently as I thought long and hard.

"Um, everybody calls me Ez. You could call me that or Ezzy, ha. It you find something better just tell me."

The boys nodded, agreeing with that statement. Everything had been quiet until we started hearing yelling coming from a house just a bit more down the road, even though it was fairly far away, we could make out exactly what they were saying. Johnny got tense.

"Whoa, where's that yelling coming from?" I asked unaware that it was Johnny's parents yelling at each other; Pony glared at me then leaned in to whisper something in my ear.

"That couple fighting is Johnny's parents, he's neglected and abused at home and his parents fight all the time. Don't bring it up," he scolded me. I instantly felt bad; I knew what it was like to be neglected. My father had started to neglect me the day Melanie met my brother and I.

I just looked over at Johnny, he looked like he was ready to just bolt in the other direction, "C'mon, Johnnycake, let's go back to my place," Pony said, turning Johnny around and pushing him back towards the direction we just came from.

We walked back to the Curtis' in silence, the yelling eventually dissipated about half a block away, man, they could really scream at each other. When we got back, Darry was gone, but Two-Bit and Steve were sitting on the couch watching TV with Soda.

Steve was the only one who acknowledged our arrival, Soda and Two-Bit were too interested in what they were watching. "Where's Darry?" Ponyboy asked him.

"He went to bed already, he has work tomorrow at six," Steve answered, looking back at the television.

I looked at Pony, shocked, "He has to wake up at six in the morning on a Sunday? Why?" I asked.

Pony and Johnny sat around the three older boys who were so into Mickey Mouse that you could explode something next door and they wouldn't even notice; it was actually pretty funny considering how different they were from the guys in New York. "He has to work all the time to take care of Soda and I."

"Oh," I said, sitting down next to Two-Bit on the couch where he patted it with his hand, not taking his eyes off the television. He and Soda were enjoying themselves too much. I loved it.


End file.
